Guardians of Gaia

Viscera stains the cobbled streets of Chelm – a message inked in the blood of innocents. The message reads “You are all fools”.

A Rabbi in Prague writes the name of God on a strip of paper. The paper falls into an old well and lands on dried mud. The ink forms a bridge and a neural circuit is engaged. Something awakens.

A man of clay follows a man of flesh down the cobbled streets. His circuits are damaged, silica connections bridged by an inferior contact. The Rabbi asks him to dance. In need of a better master, he dances.

The Rabbi forgets the bridge, leaves the paper in the machine. It goes in search of a master and finds children that need hugging. It hugs them until their smiles split and their teeth strike the cobbles like tiny raindrops.

An angry mob attacks the clay man. He does not fight back. The Rabbi comes and screams at him. Removes the circuit breaker – the life giving bridge. The clay man falls on the Rabbi and shatters.

The people bury the Rabbi and put the remains of the clay man in an attic. They are a persecuted people and they do not want attention. The clay man dreams the slow dreams of the terminally shattered.

Time passes and another man comes. His bearing is regal and he wears the swastika on his sleeve. He examines the remains and then calls in a troop of men in uniforms. They collect the clay man and carry his pieces to a truck.

In a place of death and shit and broken souls, the clay man is reassembled. All the Fuhrers horses and all of his men, put the clay man back together again. A starving old prisoner watches through the warehouse window, unnoticed behind the grime and the dust. He remembers a winter evening in Prague, and the broken smiles of dead playmates.

In the end, a tank is needed to bring down the clay man. Among the shattered remains, the remaining troops find a slip of paper with the name of god scribbled in hasty hebrew. A starving old free man watches from the edges of the camp.

Dear sweetling, this tale has no moral. Like the Guardians of Gaia.